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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a teacher, and I have almost 20 years of experience.

The situation has radically changed over the past several years.  While most parents are reasonable and perfectly pleasant, there is a small, crazed minority of parents who have ruined the system for the majority of teachers, students, and parents.  These policies are in place because that is the only way to ensure that teachers are not harrassed, slandered, and attacked by a minority of (very, VERY) badly-behaved parents.

I have witnessed a bevy of moms make it their single purpose to humiliate and destroy the careers of colleagues.  I have witnessed parents cursing and shouting at colleagues.  I have directly experienced parents who send me abusive emails before they have bothered to learn the facts of a situation, and parents who cannot conceal their disgust and scorn for teachers in general, and who believe and act as if every teacher is an enemy and peasant who must be bullied.  Again, this is not the majority of parents, but when the minority of badly-behaved parents is allowed to run rampant, it destroys the atmosphere for all teachers at the school, as well as the well-being and possibly the career of the teacher receiving the brunt of the abuse.  I do not think any other working professional routinely endures the insults and abuse teachers receive.  I really don't.

I agree that constructing a wall between parent and teacher is not the ideal way to support students.  But I also don't see any alternative.  I don't think it is possible to fully understand just how bad some parents behave toward teachers unless you have witnessed this.

For the record, I have a track record of strong AP scores and great relationships with students and parents.  Most of the teachers I have seen abused by parents were perfectly competent as well (not all, but even with weaker teachers, abusing them doesn't improve the situation).

I don't know what the solution is here.  But I suggest that rather than blaming the school for these unpleasant policies, you look toward the few badly-behaved parents who have ruined things for us all.

[/quote]

I hear you my complaints are not teacher based, we never felt the need to contact a teacher - although it's sad there are no teacher conferences.

For us, the bigger issue at our school (we are the "it's not-NCS" family) is the admin having zero reflection on what happens in the school on a variety of issues and how it has a very toxic overall impact on culture. When an admin assumes that no feedback is ever worthy and allows that view to permeates to every aspect of (and adult in) the school, it is a problem. And it has a huge impact. Especially when "no feedback is worth" is hand in hand with "we are rigorous and students need to handle it".  There's some key sense of humanity and kindness lacking in that equation as it is currently playing out and it lacks understanding that even high achieving mature HS students are still kids and could use some positive mentoring to go along with the rigor and forays into self-advocation.

I will say that we know of others who did have issues with teachers. The same names came up from different circles over different years...so admin should reflect in those situations too - and not just assume it's a student in over their head (as school would say - from parent pushing student to take too hard of a course) or a parent just pushing for a higher grade. (Again - this was not our situation but even from the outside, it seemed like "there was something there" regarding some teachers.....and that in other cases it was likely the student in over their head)

I will also say there were situations where admin were touting policies towards being out sick (during COVID) that were then flatly NOT being played out by staff. The school found this hard to believe - but I heard so many stories from other parents about students returning from long breaks where the policy was not being put into practice. (some parents didn't know about the policy - just them conveying difficulty of return and me saying "but what about this policy..." ).[/quote]

What do you mean there are no parent-teacher conferences? [/quote]
NP. Our school (SSSAS) doesn’t have parent/teacher conferences in HS either (I believe lower grades do; we started in 9th). DC’s advisor did email at the first marking period with a personalized (clearly not form letter) email about how our kid was settling in and doing well and asked if we had any questions, encouraged us to reach out to them any time if needed, so I imagine we could have asked for a meeting if we wanted to, but there’s no conferences by default. [/quote]

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